BBC Top Gear Magazine October 2025

@jack_rix @rixjack jack.rix@bbctopgearmagazine.com I have only played my part in the past 125, but 400 issues… it’s a phenomenal achievement when you consider the toil that goes into every single one. The pressure we put ourselves under is immense - to be first, to be more ambitious than the rest, to wake up earlier and go to bed later, to get the story at all costs and bring back stunning pictures and stirring words to prove it. To be a motoring journalist is a huge privilege - we know that - a life laced with unreal opportunities to meet fascinating people and visit places in the machines that grabbed us as kids and never let go. But passion counts for diddly squat if we don’t take you, the reader, along…

My knuckles have just reseated from Bobby Bolton’s handshake. He’s now 15 feet above me, shirtless, merrily sawing a hefty tree branch that’s blocking the progress of his towering camper-truck. His fiancée, Marie, surveys from a safe distance while their two dogs, Red and Rubia, snooze in the cab. They’ve seen more unusual Monday mornings than today’s. Bobby’s story is the one we’ve all toyed with after that bad day at work, that heartrending break up, that moment of ‘sod this, I’m going to tell my boss to shove it, cash in the house, pool my savings, and go see the world’. Normally, a good night’s sleep smooths it over. Not Bobby. After an 11 year relationship dissolved and he spied a well travelled Land Rover Defender pulling up outside…

YOU MAY HAVE SEEN THE F1 GTR-apeing S1 LM? This is the other model revealed by the newly formed Gordon Murray Special Vehicles – a homage to iconic longtail racers. It’s the first under the ‘SV Design’ pillar, which focuses on ultra low volume runs based on GMA production cars. There will only be 24 of these built, one for every hour of some race in France, and they’re all sold out. Sorry about that. The fundamentals are a blend of T.50 and T.50S, so it’s a three seater, with a six speed manual and the T.50’s 654bhp, 4.0-litre, 12,100rpm V12, which let’s face it, is a handy place to begin. Beyond that it’s all new. The bodywork is inspired not just by Gordon’s own F1 GTR longtail racecar –…

TG’S EDITOR-IN-CHIEF IS THE VOICE OF REASON Yes, the Le Mans GTR played second fiddle to the ridiculously cool S1 LM (visit Topgear.com or our YouTube channel if this means nothing to you) at Gordon Murray's double reveal at Monterey Car Week. However, we must remember the ingredients here are still Michelin star quality - three seats and the T.50's powertrain, but wider tyres, more downforce, firmer suspension, a solid mounted engine. If the T.50 is the 911 GT3, this is the GT3 RS. And judging by the diameter of those double pipes, it will sound beyond glorious. No wonder Joe Macari flogged them all in a flash. “The ingredients here are still Michelin star quality” TG’S DEPUTY EDITOR IS USUALLY A GM FAN BOY, BUT NOT THIS TIME… As far…

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE LAMBORGHINI GRABS ITS LATEST V12 supercar, dresses it with edgier bodywork and sells a handful to its most fanatical collectors. This is the latest in the line. Named after a Mexican fighting bull, the Fenomeno is quite simply the fastest, most powerful Lamborghini road car… ever. With 1,065bhp and a 0–62mph time of 2.4 seconds, it earns King Lambo bragging rights over the 1,001bhp Revuelto on which it’s based. Only 10bhp of the power bump comes from an upgraded 6.5-litre V12, with Lamborghini engineers admitting it’s been very difficult to find those gains in an engine that already revs to 9,500rpm while complying with worldwide emissions rules. So it’s actually the electric bit that’s doing more heavy lifting. Three electric motors generate 242bhp – 50bhp…

ALTHOUGH CAR DESIGN IS A CREATIVE process, it’s also one that entails applied knowledge. Which is what AI is good at. By the way, in talking about design, I don’t mean the very creative process of visual design. It’s trivially easy to type ‘photo rendering of 2028 Porsche 911’ into the subject line of a generative AI. So it’s a shame cost cutting bosses are now pushing skilled and creative humans out of their design studio jobs. I’m talking about using AI for the engineering design. An early example is bio-mimicry. The shape of animal bones has evolved over millions of years to be the strongest and lightest possible for the job each has to do – even though they look nothing like the regular geometric shape of conventional structural…